Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki

This year BPF Portland was a co-sponsor of the event remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki here in Portland. I went to this for the first time. This was the 45th Annual Commemoration.

NW Tibetan Cultural Association Chanters began the ceremony with chants for peace from HH The Dalai Lama. There were speakers. They weren't just speakers...they were people who've walked their talk for years. I think they said Carol Urner from WILPF was in her eighties. There were singers, the Aurora Chorus. There was ceremony. There was an interactive art piece.

The first thing I did when I got there was create my peace prayer flag for the art project. There already were many flags that had been created at street fairs, school events, and other events.There were around 300 people there, I figured.

Many of my photos were too blurry due to low light. The dancing art piece called Harmos was an extra thing after the whole ceremony and speakers, so it was pretty dark by the end. The creator took words from the peace prayer flags and wove them into a poem that she intoned while the child dancers made the lotus bloom. I finally got around to playing with the photos, so here you have my August 5th experience: